Marketing Strategies in Commercial Banks
Commercial banks traditionally imply marketing strategies which focus on customers, making banking services either beneficial or comfortable, or even both. That is entirely reasonable as banks draw their financial resources from its investors who may be private individuals (Fang, Ivashina, & Lerner, 2013). Moreover, credits and loans, which are another source of profit, also need a customer base. Considering the level of competition in banking, service-based marketing strategy has always been the primary marketing strategy. Indeed, the research made at the end of XX century shown that market segmentation based on customer needs and requirements to service help to develop an inexpensive and efficient marketing strategy (Sharma & Lambert, 1990). However, the clients of the commercial bank may require different service level while seeking for the same quantity and quality of the product. So, the particular implementation of such strategy is important.
Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation’s strategy, as well as similar policies of anonymous commercial banks of Bahrain at the beginning of XXI century, is an example of such customer-service marketing approach. The study conducted by M. Almossawi (2001) showed that banks which focused on personnel’s friendliness, availability of ATM, and place availability and accessibility attracted a significant number of customers. The efficiency of this strategy was comparable on that which was based on brand, interest rate or price (Almossawi, 2001). Moreover, the findings of study allow concluding that quality of the service creates the reputation of commercial bank’s brand, which may be used in further, more sophisticated strategies. As Almossawi claimed that “Muslims and non-Muslims valued almost the same factors when selecting their banks” (2001, p. 117), the example of Bahrain may be generalized.
Technological-change-based marketing strategy is the result of the modern evolvement of service quality approach. To be more precise, technological change implies e-banking as the way to provide services via the Internet. As e-banking offers same if not the limited products as offline banking (Chavan, 2013), and changes place aspect of the marketing mix, it may be concluded to be marketing technique. Moreover, customers are likely to respond only to marketing features of e-banking. It is proved by the study of W. Poon who discovered that characteristics like service fees are crucial for customers, and client’s inconveniences due to the Internet issues or device incompatibility are neglected (2007). However, technological change strategy may be inefficient if there are a little of technological change on the target market. For example, the vast majority of commercial banks’ customers in India preferred offline operations in 2013 (Chavan, 2013). They distrusted network technologies and the habitualness of traditional approach (Chavan, 2013). Thus, e-banking marketing should be implemented only if the market is developed enough.
Internal marketing is another strategic scope which allows increasing the effectiveness of any other marketing program of commercial banks. According to Philip Kotler et al., internal marketing aims to unite employees under shared organizational goal and ensure that they have appropriate training and skills to correspond other …
